


Day 10: Sorrow

by ApophisOfficer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Original Statement, Other, Promptober 2019, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApophisOfficer/pseuds/ApophisOfficer
Summary: Case #0120407Statement of Chloe BeningRegarding: A nighttime encounter with a creature they believe to have been a Siren.





	Day 10: Sorrow

Case #0120407

Statement of Chloe Bening 

Regarding: A nighttime encounter with a creature they believe to have been a Siren.

**-Statement Begin-**

I’m 23, just out of college and fresh into the world of actual adulthood. Really, I can barely resolve all the work I put into school with the terrible job in my field that I now have until I have enough experience to get a decent job in my field. I figured if I just kept my head down and did my job, eventually I’d get somewhere where a part of my life didn’t suck anymore.

Maybe I could have, if I just hadn’t gone to that bar with Katie. 

You see, my friend Katie had this boyfriend who fancied himself a singer. He’d gone to school for it and everything but if you asked anyone in a general audience, they’d tell you he should probably stick to the piano. Anyway, the boyfriend had gotten himself a steady gig playing for tips at a piano bar, where people got just drunk enough to not care if the singer was a little off key and went flatter every time he tried to hold a note. 

Normally, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a piano bar, much less one with a mediocre music act but I had a crush on my friend Katie and even if it was never going anywhere, it made me weak to her requests.

So there I sat, listening to Katie’s mediocre boyfriend croon out mediocre music for tip money in a mostly empty piano bar and I’d just settled into my second drink when she approached. 

The woman was beautiful. Soft features framed by an undercut and an edgy leather jacket. She looked like she could kick my ass but wouldn’t because she was nice. Exactly my type. She hummed along to the music in a lyrical voice that had me entranced as soon as I heard it. 

She talked to me first, walked right up and started asking how my night was going. If I’d had any sort of sense, the fact that I was wearing ratty jeans and a zip up hoodie that had seen better days would have set off alarm bells about her interest in my head but I was already a glass deep, you know, and I had hope that she actually liked me. She was stunning, and you have to take your chances where they come. So my suspicious nature relaxed for a bit and when she suggested we blow the piano bar off for a more lively place down the street I could hardly refuse.

I knew Katie would be upset by me leaving early but I just couldn’t seem to care. I made threadbare excuses to my friends and followed the woman out the door. 

You know, I never did get a name out of her. She was good at redirecting away from that. I wonder if she even had one.

The walk around the block was where I started to regather some of my senses. I didn’t even know this woman’s name! Why was I following her in the dark to an unfamiliar bar, on my own no less? I knew better than this, how had I let attraction cloud my mind so thoroughly?

It was stupid and I knew it. I checked my jacket pockets for my phone and the mace attached to my keyring just to assure myself that the moment things got dicey, I could get myself out. 

It didn’t do much to soothe my nerves, but the walk wasn’t long and the bar we arrived at was crowded enough that if I kicked up a fuss at least someone would notice. Suddenly my concern was on the sign out front, reading Karaoke Night in cheerful letters. 

I’d just left one mediocre but familiar music act to endure a good dozen mediocre karaoke acts.

I resolved then and there to stay for an hour, get the woman’s name and number if she wanted to, and then go home where there were no music acts to be found. 

She agreed to grab a table while I got our drink orders so I was able to get a water in a gin glass at the bar. I wanted to be sober enough to make a swift exit when I was ready and there was a little voice that sounded an awful lot like my grandmother shouting at me not to drink in a place where no one I knew was watching my back. Paranoid lady, she’d drilled a lot of good habits into me though and they probably saved my life that night. I’ll have to go thank her, when I leave here. It’s about time I visited the cemetery.

Anyway, I’d been trying to talk to this girl who was half ignoring me around the sound of middle aged office workers belting the best of the 80’s and other 20 somethings fail to keep up with pop singers with their alcohol loose tongues for a good 40 minutes when the woman gets up and marches up to the stage herself. I’d been mid-sentence when it happened. That was the point I decided she just wasn’t worth it and I didn’t even want her number anymore. I just wanted to leave.

I resolved to make my goodbyes when she came back and finished off my own water in preparation. 

If you’d given me a million chances, I’d never have been able to guess what she chose to sing. Mostly because I didn’t know what the hell it was. It was something soft and sad, her voice full of sorrow as she stared directly at me with wide eyes. It wasn’t Spanish, I knew that much. Not French either. Whatever it was, it was enchanting. 

The bar had gone quiet in the wake of her song. It was evocative. Suddenly, I didn’t care about being taken to a karaoke bar for stilted conversation. I wanted to keep talking to her. I wanted to stay in that bar all night just getting to know her. I wanted to bash myself against the rocks of that ocean of sorrow until she was no longer alone on an island, adrift.

And doesn’t that just make too much sense in retrospect?

That feeling floated me through her return to the table and had me agreeing readily to walk with her back to the fountain across from the piano bar to make wishes with pennies. I remember the delirious thought that I would wish for our future happiness, I was so sold on this woman who I’d moments ago decided wasn’t worth even waiting for a phone number. 

She looked pleased as we walked to the fountain, her eyes glistening in the street lamps. At the time I thought she was just as happy as I was to spend time together. 

I know better now. 

It was only by the fountain, as she leaned in, in a gesture I’d thought was an attempt to kiss me, that I came out of the trance I’d been under. I caught her with my hand to press her shoulder backt to tell her that while I appreciated the interest, I was very Asexual and not at all interested in those kinds of activities. 

I saw her eyes glint in the street lamps again, except this time I could really see how the pupils had slitted into the eyes of an otherworldly predator. 

My horror froze me for a moment as she smiled and her teeth, god, her teeth were so sharp and there were so many of them. They shouldn’t have all fit in there except her mouth was stretching to accommodate her rows and rows of teeth. Her skin was blue and slimy now, the transformation sudden and terrifying. She looked pleased, for all she now barely had anything resembling human features, and she looked _ hungry _.

There and then I knew with certainty that I was what she intended to eat. 

I scrambled back, thanking my grandmother in some obscure part of my brain once again for drilling me to not put my back against obstructions, like fountains that the murderous monster in front of me probably wanted to drown me in so it could eat me. The piano bar, and therefore my car, weren’t far if I could get some distance between us. I just needed to create that distance. 

The thing advanced on me as I retreated, teeth bared and eyes alight with satisfaction as it told me how I would make a wonderful meal after I drowned mere yards from my friends. It was not worried, I was little more than a mouse being played with by a cat.

Then I maced it in the face.

Admittedly, the scream the thing emitted when I hit it dead in the eyes and mouth with bear mace was down right satisfying, but I knew better than to stick around and gloat. The thing gloating was what had given me the opportunity to fight back, I wasn’t going to make it’s mistake. Never gloat, gloating got you killed.

I spun around and dashed towards my car, keys in hand as I approached it and unlocking and locking the vehicle in only the time it took me to get in. I had the engine turned on before the creature could finish dunking it’s head in the water of the fountain to try and flush it’s eyes. 

Getting out of the parallel parking slowed me down, the asshole behind me had pulled way over the line and by the time I got out onto the regular road, it was standing there, staring at me in rage. 

Honestly, I’m quite proud that I didn’t hesitate to run it over. It wanted to eat me, I sure as hell wasn’t going to show it mercy. 

I did phone the police, told them I’d been attacked and that the person who’d done it had thrown herself in front of my car as I tried to leave. That I was too scared to stop in case she tried to hurt me again and I couldn’t get away. 

Couple of cops came to visit me the next day, said they were from something called Section 31 and actually believed me when I told them what she was. Good to know someone is doing something about them, but that means there are more of them out there. This wasn’t some fluke, it was an actual honest to god monster that almost killed me. Not sure I’ll ever sleep the same. 

I should probably move, maybe get a guard dog. I’m sure as hell not going to any bars without a mate to watch my back anymore. It was bad enough when it was just people you had to look out for, now it’s some creatures that can cloud your mind and change your will. 

Maybe I’ll just stop going to bars, never found anything worth knowing there anyway. 

**-Statement End-**

Follow up Notes:

Mx. Bening did not move though they did get a dog. 

The Institute has requested case files from Section 31 but the request has not been granted yet. Update to follow. 

There were 4 disappearances in the area during the month leading up to Mx. Benings attack. John Michaels, Tori Kennings, Alicia Cartwright, and Dany Fields have all remained missing. It is unverified how many of them might have been victims of the creature detailed. None of them have been found since. 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta Read by Grammarly.com  
Thank you Grammarly for your good software haha
> 
> You can find my prompt sheet here: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/854695


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